It remains to be seen whether the obstructionist Republicans in the House will pass Obama's proposal, but tonight, Obama surpassed my expectations. This wasn't the "I'm going to put forward an idea and then back down from it in a week" Obama. This was the "go ahead, try me" Obama – repositioning himself as the political leader who has tried again and again to work with Republicans and get something done, but can't because Republicans simply aren't willing.

It's still a question whether voters will buy it when it comes election time and unemployment is still disappointingly high, but at least he finally took the tone and stance – not just rhetoric – of being the "adult in the room" who puts bipartisan solutions on the table.

Which, in turn, the Republicans crossed their arms and frowned at. Come again? From my perspective, his plan could go further – a more extensive public jobs creation programme, refinancing the principal on mortgages, not just interest rates. Meanwhile, though, Obama went out of his way to incorporate conservative ideas in his plan and highlight them dramatically in his speech. The Republicans didn't even clap for their own ideas! All of the sudden, the party that never met a tax it didn't hate is sitting on its hands when Democrats propose tax cut after tax cut.

But perhaps that's the real rub. Republicans only like tax cuts for the super rich. Tax reform and investments that make America work for everyone? No Republican applause for that.

•Sally Kohn is a grassroots strategist and political commentator

James Antle: 'A mish-mash of tax increases on some and tax cuts for others'

The president certainly came out fighting this evening. "Pass it now!" was his refrain, as he all but dared congressional Republicans to vote against a plan – containing ideas some of them had supported in the past – that he confidently asserted would create jobs. Should they fail, Obama promises to "take this message to every corner" of the country. Loaded with booby traps for Republicans on taxes, Obama is setting himself up to run against a "Do-Nothing Congress" in 2012 – just like Harry Truman in 1948.

Progressives, by and large, loved the speech, though they are not looking forward to the deficit reduction proposals, because Obama was so combative. The left side of my Twitter feed was filled with regrets that Obama hadn't done this sometime in 2010. Given this week's ABC News/Washington Post poll showing a lack of enthusiasm among Obama's base voters, that's not insignificant. But I question whether this speech really did the job among swing voters.

First of all, it is a lot easier to run against the brokenness of Washington when you are a challenger running against an unpopular incumbent president's party. It doesn't resonate quite as well when you are the unpopular incumbent president. Voters who sense that Washington is broken might reasonably ask why the man they elected president in 2008 hasn't fixed it.

Second, Obama has to both fight the Republicans and look like a leader at the same time. That's easier said than done. If Congress doesn't heed his demands to pass the jobs bill, he will look like he has made another empty promise. If he says it is the Republicans' fault it didn't pass, some independents will be persuaded – but others will think he is shifting blame. If he tries to transcend the political process entirely, people will wonder what he is doing in Washington.

Third, it is not clear that the plan makes any logical sense from either a conservative or liberal perspective. It is a mish-mash of tax increases on some people and tax cuts for others, with some discussion of building as many trains as China or hiring as many teachers as South Korea thrown in. But from a Keynesian vantage point, what the jobs bill giveth, the deficit reduction might taketh away. From a more supply-side view, job creators will see their taxes cut or raised depending on the scenario.

If you thought the original stimulus was too small, why pass an even smaller one with more tax cuts in it? If you thought it too large, why add another $450bn to the sunk costs?

In the end, Obama has given speeches like this before, with more eloquence if less passion. It will take a few days, and perhaps a few football games, to see if the American people are still listening.

I found myself feeling a little anxious as I waited for the president's speech on Thursday night: anxious for him and anxious for the millions of Americans who, just like me, were counting on him to take up the mantle of leadership and make something happen. Right now.

As he entered the room, I was reminded that this was more than about him as the president. It was also about the 535 members of Congress who also need to step up, do their jobs and make meaningful changes in the economy. Right now.

I appreciated the power and passion of the president's call to action. But haven't we heard much of this before? How can he deliver these things now? My hope and faith are already on life support.

Tax savings. Trade agreements. Investments in infrastructure and education. It all sounds great. But none of it makes any difference if it all just becomes another political football for a Congress that, so far, has shown little ability or interest in moving beyond the political games. I ask myself, when will it stop being about them and more about taking care of us – the people who hired them.

Mr President, we need you to lead. But what difference will it make if no one will even try to follow you? I am just so tired of it all.

Austin King: 'We saw a president with fire in his belly trying to help'

President Obama's primetime speech on job creation was certainly more closely watched in Washington than in Wisconsin, where viewers were more likely to be tailgating before the NFL season kickoff for the defending Superbowl champion Green Bay Packers. Still, across the country, from the Capitol's corridors to the grills of Green Bay, people are acutely anxious about America's unemployment crisis. President Obama's jobs proposal, unveiled vigorously tonight, is cause for some long overdue optimism.

The president accurately described the relatively modest proposal as deserving to be uncontroversial, consisting of modest bipartisan ideas. Yet his tone was urgent and campaign-trail feisty, peppered with the exhortative refrain of, "Pass this bill, now!" He needled the GOP by mocking the Grover Norquist blood oath against raising taxes and assertively articulated the role of government.

Most forcefully, he sent a strong message to workers in Wisconsin and elsewhere who have mobilised in historic numbers against brutal assaults:

"I reject the idea that we have to strip away collective bargaining rights to compete in a global economy. We shouldn't be in a race to the bottom."

He also made no mention of a rumoured proposal modelled after a Georgia programme in which the unemployed "work" in exchange for training rather than wages. This omission is good news for workers and common sense.

President Obama's proposal to invest in transportation infrastructure, repair and modernise 35,000 schools, and keep teachers employed will certainly help with unemployment. Even more tax cuts certainly won't. But they might help this jobs package, already modest, get through this intransigent Congress.

Much more needs to be done to put the economy on a path to prosperity, but tonight's proposal is at least a start. Most importantly, the unemployed and under-attack workers of America saw a president with some fire in his belly trying to help.

•Austin King is a former president of Madison, Wisconsin city council and an organiser with the Service Employees International Union

Naomi Cohn: 'The emphasis on jobs for construction workers and teachers seemed out of place'

From the president's first phrase, "Tonight, we meet at an urgent time for our country," it seemed as if he had finally woken up from a deep slumber and seen the extent of the devastation caused by the massive unemployment that has spread across the land. He described the situation as "an ongoing national crisis".

Yet, there was an element to the speech that was divisive rather than inclusive. Throughout, Obama singled out four groups for special consideration, saying his plan will "create more jobs for construction workers, more jobs for teachers, more jobs for veterans, and more jobs for the long-term unemployed".

His emphasis on the long-term unemployed is welcome and unlikely to be controversial. The plan includes a programme for those receiving benefits to participate in temporary work as a way to build skills, and also provides employers with a tax credit if they hire anyone who has been out of work for more than six months. These are positive steps that address the problem of employers who discriminate against those who have been out of work longest. Among that group are large numbers of people over the age of 50.

Similarly, singling out veterans for special attention is unlikely to cause resentment. The president's mention of vets brought applause from the entire joint session.

But the heavy emphasis on jobs for construction workers and teachers seemed out of place. Granted, our infrastructure needs work and our children need educating. Yet, from the perspective of the unemployed, it hardly seems fair to imply that only construction workers and teachers are useful and productive members of our society deserving of jobs.

•Naomi Cohn is a New York attorney, laid off in January 2009; she is now working part-time after a long spell of unemployment

Obama's speech disappointed: too little money, too much rhetoric, too late. A bigger stimulus composed of similar parts failed to overcome unemployment over the last two years. This smaller stimulus cannot do better. More business tax cuts, profit-rich construction contracts for infrastructure and so on will not coax corporate hiring any better the second time.

Better than nothing, yes. But that falls far short of what so deep a crisis requires.

Obama ignores how Roosevelt cut unemployment by direct federal hiring in the 1930s. Millions of new federal jobs now could build up the schools, clinics, daycare centres, parks and elderly facilities we need; green buildings and communities for ecological survival. And they could complete countless useful social projects, which private enterprises have failed to do.

Government hiring is the most direct and most cost-effective solution for unemployment. With decent wages, federal jobs enable the formerly unemployed to maintain mortgage payments, keep their homes and so stop the housing market's decline.

A creative Obama could adapt Italy's Marcona law. It offers an alternative to monthly unemployment insurance cheques. The unemployed can choose three years of those cheques paid in a lump sum if pooled with other unemployed persons' lumps sums as capital to start their own cooperative businesses. How much more invested in their new jobs such formerly unemployed people would be, while costing the government little more than it now spends.

Meanwhile, all Americans could see and assess a far more democratic business model than we have now.

•Richard Wolff is professor of economics emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Obama's "plan" is largely a repeat of the stimulus spending legislation of 2009. The theory was, and evidently remains, that if the government takes money in debt or taxes from people who earned it and gives it to the politically targeted, there is more money in the economy.

If you take a bucket of water from one side of the lake and carry it around to the other side of the lake and pour it back into the lake, then the entire lake is "stimulated" to great depths.

Obama's speech tonight was all about pouring water back into the lake. He promises that later, he will give a talk about how he will take the water out of the lake. Benefits now; costs to be discussed later.

This did not work in 2009: the economy has weakened. It did spark the Tea Party movement that brought Republicans to power in the House in November 2010.

The president is a good campaigner. He is not a very good president. So now he is giving up on being president and returning to the campaign.

Washington is fundamentally out of step with national values. As millions of families face unemployment, foreclosures and higher levels of poverty, CEOs and the super-rich are getting wealthier. Instead of putting the country back to work, Washington is attacking working-class people, while states like Arizona and Wisconsin are scapegoating the very people and institutions that can get the country back on track. Slashes in federal funding, mass layoffs of government workers, and attacks on unions are driving families and the country further into poverty.

While it may be politically expedient for politicians to blame the jobs crisis on hardworking immigrants rather than Wall Street, the country is plagued by a historical amnesia about the country's identity as a nation built by immigrants and organised labour. The railroads and the bridges the president spoke of were built by immigrants or Americans in waiting.

The president's own policies, including draconian – indeed, historic – levels of deportation, display a short-sightedness that only serves to lower labour standards (the very "race to the bottom" he scorned in his speech) by creating an exploitable class of workers who are reluctant to assert their universal labour rights for fear of deportation. The beneficiaries of these policies are, once again, the business elites who only get richer while the wages of workers plummet.

The president's proposal to put the construction worker, the teacher, the youth and the unemployed back to work hopefully signals a shift towards a people-centered economy. The president can lead a "race to the top" only by standing with unions and workers to rebuild the middle and working class.

•Sarahi Uribe is east coast organiser for the National Day Laborer Organising Network

John Challenger: 'The president failed to address how to stoke entrepreneurialism'

In Thursday's jobs speech to a joint session of Congress, President Obama did not arrive with new ideas, instead proposing another heavy round of fiscal stimulus, similar to what was enacted just after he came into office. This programme fell short the first time and it is unlikely to produce better results now. Putting money in working people's pockets may spur short-term demand but does little to attack the country's deeper issues.

The president failed to address the issue of how to stoke entrepreneurialism and free up small- and medium-sized business to operate at their maximum potential. Because, while President Obama seeks job-creation advice from the head of one of the world's largest multinational conglomerates, the fact is that new businesses and companies with fewer than 500 employees have proven to be the most powerful engines of US job growth.

Instead of trying to appease lawmakers on both sides of the aisle with a mix of giveaways and tax cuts, Obama must create stronger businesses. Don't build infrastructure that just puts people back to work; ask business owners what infrastructure makes them more competitive. He must find a way to change the tone in Washington, DC. The administration filled regulatory agencies with appointees who are bitter business adversaries charged with enforcement. They are gumming up the works.

Initiatives the president has proposed, like free trade with South Korea, Colombia and Panama, payroll tax cuts to small business, and 100% expensing of business equipment purchases, are steps in the right direction. But bolder steps must be taken to create a new environment where job creators have government that is working with them, as a partner, to compete for jobs and global economic growth in the 21st century.

•John A Challenger is CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc, a leading outplacement consulting firm